Kizz & Tell is a combination of item #17 on my Life List (Develop an erotic fiction web site) and a continuation of the G-spot column I used to write at The Women's Colony. From fantasies to frank discussion I'm just trying to re-create a really great conversation with your friends. I hope you'll join in!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Speak Loudly

Interestingly I am so unnerved by the brouhaha surrounding the book I want to recommend that I am nearly speechless. It is, you see, a book about a teenager who finds herself unable to speak after she is raped.

The book is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and it is not pornography. I'm not telling you that because I think you're stupid or because being recommended here means that something will necessarily be titillating. I'm telling you because a professor in Missouri is campaigning to have Speak banned because he classifies it as pornography. The two sex scenes in the book depict rape and he thinks that makes it soft core porn.

On the recommendation of my friend, JRH, I read Speak a couple of years ago and went on to read some of Anderson's other work. I love YA fiction and her work is some of the cream of that particular crop. Speak isn't an easy subject but it is an important one. Banning this book, on any grounds, is tantamount to insisting that rape victims everywhere be silent about their assault. You don't have to believe me, read this article on Blogher to see what the author found in the back of her local library's copy of Speak.

Thanks to Sassymonkey for writing that post on Blogher and bringing my attention to the issue. If you're on Twitter please use the hashtag #SpeakLoudly in support of Ms. Anderson, her book and victims of sexual assault everywhere.

I immediately emailed my librarian mother, who brought it up to a co-worker, who then posted the ordeal on his facebook and twitter. I feel like a phone tree.I later that night had a really interesting conversation with aforementioned librarian mother about censorship. And about young girls. And about sexual abuse. AnI second Michelle--Thanks for raising awareness and promoting conversation.